Failing Forward is Part of Leadership

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”  - Robert F. Kennedy

As adults, we have been taught that failing is bad. In most cases, we frown upon it. It is looked at as, well, a failure. However, I see failure as synonymous with learning. Wait, what? Failing equals learning. That sounds crazy.

Childhood

Once upon a time, we were all little, our main method of movement was crawling across the floor. At some point, we started to try to stand up. The first attempts were usually met with wobbly knees and gravity sending us back to the floor. We crawled off and then tried again a few minutes later. Soon we managed to find our legs beneath us and we were standing. All the while our parents celebrated those little achievements. In fact, what they really did was celebrated each little failure. Every time we fell back to the floor we were praised for trying. Our parents would get down on the floor with us, get us in that standing position and then let go. They'd encourage us to walk towards them. We'd try, topple over and the hugs and kisses for trying were lavished upon us. After weeks of this, we finally managed to get our legs and feet to work together and move us along for our first steps. Success was ours.

We tried new things and the praise continued. As children, we were often celebrating multiple failures. But, they were always leading to something bigger and better. We would learn from each of those attempts. And it continued for years. Did anyone get up on a two-wheel bike and ride into the sunset on the first attempt? No. We started with training wheels and then eventually our Mom or Dad was running behind us and sometimes (accidentally) letting us fall over. Scraped knees and elbows were our badges of courage. And, we received a very comforting hug and kiss for the 'try'.

Adulthood

Fast forward many years, suddenly trying something new or the 'attempts' were no longer rewarded. A bruised ego or a few shed tears were not soothed with caring voices. We learned that failure was no longer something to celebrate. And our learning curve slowed way down.Think about how much you learned in short periods of time before we reached the age of 5 or 10. It is exponential compared what we now learn as adults. So, why the change in thinking?

• Is it the high fear of failing to do something right the first time, so we avoid trying to begin with?

• Has it become less socially acceptable to ‘fail at something’?

• Is failure not seen as a prerequisite for success? Do we value the ‘try’ less?

• Are we afraid that if we attempt and we fail, there is no one else to blame?

Is our consciousness of the consequences so much greater today that we try fewer things which may lead to failure, thus stifling our learning?With that in mind, do we lose sight of the ‘behind the scenes’ work that is still being conducted? How many failures do we not see? It is OK to ‘fail’ by trying in laboratories? Do you think all the medicines we use worked the first time someone tried? Does everyone succeed in creating a business the first time? Do authors write a best-selling novel on the first draft? Of course not, yet we value their efforts and their attempts. We need to stop applying a different standard to the things we do every day.

A Leader’s Role

Leadership is knowing when to recognize the difference between failure and pushing forward. I was recently reminded of a situation I faced as the Vice President of Store Operations.

We had spent several weeks getting the project pulled together. The deadline was upon us and we thought the program was ready to go. But something didn’t feel right, pieces were missing, and it was not clicking together as we had hoped. We would miss the deadline, have to explain to our boss, and disappoint our field teams. It was the right thing to do though. We looked at what we had already and talked through some different options. We played with a couple of new ideas and then settled on what would make this a better outcome both short and long-term. The project was late by more than two weeks. The final outcome, which had come from several trial and error ideas ended up being a much better solution. Outside of our team, they saw a delay, but also a program they could use. Inside our team, we celebrated making the right decision and learning new things we could use for the next project. That small failure was a blessing and would help us better support the stores in the future. We had just failed forward.

As leaders, we can never stop learning. We must try new ideas and not be afraid to fail along the way. The key element is translating small failures into learning that can be applied to multiple things in the future. Be bold, be brave, be innovative. Fail forward today.

What is something you have learned from previous 'failures' in your role?

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